*from a post written in 2007. I felt it was time to revisit this one.
A statement may be true at a high level of understanding, but can be incomprehensible to the person operating at the average level of consciousness. Its value may therefore be corrupted when the statement is distorted by the limitations of the listener.This has been the fate of religions throughout the ages, when pronouncements or teachings originating from high levels of awareness were later misinterpreted by followers vested with authority, operating at lower levels of consciousness.
Such distortion can be seen today in fundamentalist Christianity. The fundamentalist’s interpretation of religious teachings stresses negativity, and is removed from this negativity only by truth. The lowest depictions of deity are of a God who is jealous, vengeful, and angry, a God of wrath far removed from the God of mercy, grace, and love. The God of righteous negativity represents a glorification of the negative, and provides for his followers a disavowal of responsibility through justification of human cruelty and mayhem, through religious justification. The truth of each level of consciousness is self-verifying in that each level has its range of perception, which confirms what’s already believed to be true. Thus, everyone feels justified in the viewpoints that underlie his actions and beliefs. That’s the inherent danger of the general usage of the term "righteousness": anyone can be righteous, from the killer who justifies his rage by some vague religious teaching , to ecclesiastic demagogues and political extremists of all persuasions. By distorting context, it’s possible to rationalize and justify almost any human behavior. All wars are stated to be "righteous" by their perpetators. *
*essential information from: "Power vs Force" by Dr. David Hawkins
Ξ June 29th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
*Third in a series of posts taken from Bart Ehrman’s, "Jesus Interrupted", my own interpretations.
I believe the Bible to be a human book, not one of divine inspiration. While it is a wonderful book, in my opinion, the most influential book in all of Western civilization, for good or bad. To be sure many parts of the Bible are inspiring, but it is not inspired as I was taught for so many years, a process watched over every step of the way by God, telling each writer what to say. We have none of the originals manuscripts written by the supposed authors. We have only copies of copies of copies…ad infinitum. Those have been changed untold times by human hands from many places on the globe down through the years.
The books that we consider Scripture came into existence as the Canon centuries after those books were first written. The Canon was the result of very human activity rather than divine activity. It was the result of very human church leaders, all of which were men, many of which had different agendas, both political and religious, making the best decisions they could to organize a set of acceptable books. The formulation of the Canon was a very human process. Most of these men wanted the churches to be unified in the face of opposition from outside. These men wanted all the churches in agreement on important issues, aspects, and doctrines which would constitute the universal church. They didn’t want troublemakers in their midst. They wanted to be sure that theirs was the only Orthodox position; the only Orthodox teaching that had been handed down over the years since Jesus and his disciples walked the earth. This Bible, this Canon is what these men wanted to pass on to posterity. They wanted to know that they were RIGHT. The formation of the Canon was in some sense, a movement to decide who is RIGHT and who is WRONG. When work on the Canon began, there were no foregone conclusions. For literally centuries, people and churches continued to insist that this or that book should be in the Canon or this or that book should be omitted from the Canon. By the beginning of the 4th century the options had narrowed and by the 11th century, there were basically no options left. The Orthodox position had won. It is still the Canon we have today and it will probably be the Canon of the church as long as the church lasts.
Ξ June 24th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
*Part Two in a series of three posts
With respect to the Canon, the problem we have in thinking that we have the very words of God is bigger, than the fact that we don’t always know what those words were. There is also the problem of knowing whether the right books got into our Bible and if those are the ones God intended to be Scripture in the first place. Of course, fundamentalists say that God protected the process to insure that the right books were chosen…..But really now, how do we know for sure, that the right ones got in and that some "inspired" books were not left out??? I know that there are people out there who think that the Bible just kind of descended from heaven one day shortly after the crucifixion. But, now you know, at least to some extent, that this is not the case. Moving on…….
It was English apologist and scholar, C.S. Lewis, who believing that Jesus was divine, came up with a formulation to defend his position. In Lewis’ formulation, since Jesus called himself God (in the gospel of John), there were only three logical possibilities: he was either a liar, lunatic, or Lord. If Jesus was wrong in his claim to be God, he either knew it or he didn’t. If he knew he wasn’t God, he’s a liar. If he didn’t know he wasn’t God, he must be crazy, or a lunatic. The final choice would be that Jesus was right in his claim and he must be the Lord. Lewis goes on to show all sorts of reasons that Jesus was not a liar or a lunatic….soooooo, the inevitable conclusion is: he is the Lord, God.
Ehrman relates that he came to see that the argument presented by Lewis as flawed. The argument, based on Jesus as liar, lunatic, or Lord, is based on the assumption that Jesus did truly call himself God. The author has come to the conclusion that he never called himself God. It was only in the latest gospel, John, that Jesus is said to call himself God. None of the earliest traditions in Christianity indicate that Jesus ever said any such thing about himself. Don’t believe Ehrman, check it out for yourself. None of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke say a thing about it. Wonder if they just forgot to mention that part? Perhaps Jesus’ divinity was simply a part of the author/authors of the gospel of John’s theology and was never a part of Jesus’ teaching.
Ehrman says perhaps there’s another word to go with Lewis’ three in the formualtion: Liar, Lunatic, Lord, or Legend.
Hold on now, what Ehrman means here was perhaps the idea that Jesus called himself God was a legend. Maybe Jesus never called himself God. This means he doesn’t have to be either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. He could be a first-century Palestinian Jew who had a message to proclaim other than his own divinity………..But this begs the question: how can Ehrman or any other New Testament scholar or historian know what Jesus actually said about himself or about anything else?
~ to be continued
Ξ June 22nd, 2009 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |
PART ONE
In the early days of the Christian church there developed a battle of sorts for the minds of the believers as to what really constituted Christianity’s beliefs. The process of the formation of the Canon was a long protracted series of debates and conflicts over which books (whose books) ought to be included. The group which won this battle of many years, would write the history of that conflict. The winner came to be called orthodox, from the Greek meaning "correct belief". All the other "losers" would be called heretics, another Greek word meaning literally, "to choose" (to choose that which is not orthodox). Each group insisted that they were right, each trying to win converts to their way of thinking and belief. Each group had sacred books that confirmed their beliefs and points of view. Most of the books on both sides were said to have been written by apostles. Only one group was right! But which was it? The Canon would represent the books favored by the side which won.
Ultimately, only one group won the battle for converts. The Orthodox victory was sealed sometime in the third century when Constantine converted to this form (orthodox) of the faith. It was then that the Orthodox declared that they had been right all along and everyone else wrong. Theirs were the only beliefs of Jesus and his disciples and the apostles. The Orthodox are the Christians which we know most about. Mainly because they attempted to see that all traces of heretical literature were destroyed. It has only been in recent history that we have begun to discover some of those "heretical" writings and books (Nag hammadi). It was Orthodox writings, not the writings of their opponents which were preserved for posterity. It was their collection of writings that were the ones eventually chosen to be a part of what came to be known as the Canon.
When the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, that placed Rome in a special position. The Orthodox position was especially well represented in the city of Rome. The Roman Christians asserted their influence on other churches, encouraging them to follow the lead of the church at the center of empire, where the members were more numerous as well as wealthier, and better organized than other Christian groups. Once they had become the largest group, and had won the battle for the minds of Christians, they rewrote the history of the conflict. What emerged from this writing was Eusebius’ Church History. It was the only account of the conflict which we had for a long time. Over the next three centuries, the multitude of writings supported by the Orthodox side would be debated some more, tweaked several times, voted on many times, and finally would be generally accepted by most, but not all Christian churches.
(to be continued)
*Information from various sources, relying heavily on:
Bart Erhman’s, Jesus Interrupted
Ξ June 19th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: "This is how it is." You have to be larger than thought to realize that however you interpret "your life" or someone else’s life or behavior, however you judge any situation, it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. It is no more than a bundle of thoughts. But reality is one unified whole, in which all things are interwoven, where nothing exists in and by itself. Thinking fragments reality- it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.
Ξ June 17th, 2009 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Life |
The Bible is the most widely purchased, extensively read, and deeply revered book in the history of Western Civilization. Arguably it is also the most thoroughly misunderstood, especially by the lay reading public.
~ "Jesus Interrupted", by Bart Ehrman
*In the next several posts, I will be discussing ideas and topics from Ehrman’s new book.
Ξ June 12th, 2009 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |
Do or do not….There is no TRY….
~Yoda
Either you get it or you don’t. Just don’t try to get it. I don’t mean to sound cruel or hard, but no one wants to hear you whine or moan that, "I’m trying".
Maybe it’s time we stopped trying so hard to understand God, this life, ourselves, others (people in general). The shooting at the Holocaust Museum got me reflecting on this subject. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what would cause someone to do what that man did. Then, I was reading a blog which quoted the phrase from Star Wars. It put things in a different light for me. Most of the time we’re trying too hard at whatever IT is. Maybe we need to dump the "trying" and just relax. I have found that I learn the most when I try the least. Do you know what I mean? Like I said, you either get it or you don’t. Just don’t try to get it.
Have a great weekend!!
*idea from Ethereal Existentialism
Ξ June 11th, 2009 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Life |
Yesterday, Wednesday, June 10th, we were all reminded that all is not well with some people here in the U.S. The shooting at the Holocaust Museum is a reminder that racial hatred still stares us in the face here in America. I don’t understand how a person considers other human beings to be less a person than himself. What is it that drives a man like James Van Brunn, other than the obvious answer, hatred? What in his past led him to where he is today? Should we even try to understand? Perhaps these are unanswerable questions, but ones which I must ask nevertheless.
"If we’re more opposed, for instance, to what we take to be bad language and nude scenes and films about gay people than we are to people being blown up, starved to death, deprived of life-saving medicine, or tortured, our offendedness is out of whack. We have yet to understand the nature of real perversion. We aren’t as deeply acquainted with our religion as we might think."
from Mike Leaptrott. Taken from David Dark’s , "The Sacredness of Questioning Everything".
We are called human beings, not human doings……………..
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